Wendy Foster on State Street was mobbed this Wednesday morning as word leaked out that the whole downtown store was marked down 50 percent. The Foster empire’s six boutiques dropped to five with the announcement on Tuesday that it would close its State Street location in Santa Barbara.
“With the ever-changing climate of Santa Barbara’s downtown shopping destination, we feel that it is best for our business to focus on our other locations at this time,” the proprietors wrote in a Facebook post at day’s end on Tuesday.
The home “stuff” store Upstairs in Montecito’s Upper Village and the two clothing stores there remain, as do Angel on Coast Village Road and the shop in Los Olivos over the mountains in the Santa Ynez Valley. The Upper Village spot at San Ysidro and East Valley roads is next door to where Pierre Lafond & Co’s deli has provided a quick meal, wine, and groceries since 1964. Lafond, a pioneer in Santa Barbara’s wine industry and Foster’s longtime partner, died in 2022.
Wendy Foster State Street had been a staple for women’s clothing simply suited to Santa Barbara climate — or, as humorist David Sedaris once described, “At night it cools down, just so you can wear cashmere.” Foster’s moderately high-end fashions were found for nearly 40 years on the street corner of Canon Perdido and State, just outside Paseo Nuevo, before the downtown store moved to 1220 State Street a few years ago.
Foster’s Facebook notice expressed the regret of leaving but gave no indication why, except to say they would be gone by the end of their lease in May. The dressing-room line today, which reached the door, and the shorter line at the cash register, however, is the busiest the store has ever seen.
